There are numerous parameters that provide financial information about publicly traded securities (e.g., stocks). These parameters include, for example, the market capitalization of the company that issued the security, the security's performance rating, the company's geographic region and industry sector, the exchange on which the security is traded, the price-to-earnings ratio (P/E), the company's growth rate, the security appreciation (or depreciation) rate over various time periods (e.g., 1 year, 3 years, 5 years), etc. This is only a small sample of the parameters that are sometimes used to assess a publicly traded security. Numerous other parameters exist, including ones that are the result of mathematical formulas based on one or more underlying parameters.
An analyst of publicly traded securities considers many of these parameters for a number of securities. The ability of analysts to visualize multiple parameters for numerous companies at a time in a meaningful way, however, is limited. The analyst could use a table containing the data, but such tables are often hard to interpret and do not lend themselves to easy visual analysis and inspection. Also, simple charts, such as bar charts and scatter charts, are often not satisfactory because they can only convey information about one or two parameters at a time.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a way to visually present data on numerous parameters for numerous securities at a time in a meaningful way.